Ayurveda Living

Upasana at Brahmamuhurta

The above illustration is the epitome of upasana.  Most of us would love to meditate in such a manner.  Would it not be great to sit on a lotus at sunrise, hands in chin or gyan mudra… Our spiritual practice may be however a far cry from this idyllic picture.

Upasana is a sanskrit word which means literally “sitting near God.  What is God?  Where is God?  These great  questions are answered in our daily lives.  People may disagree on the semantics  and even go to war for that purpose.  Whatever is one’s view,  there is something greater than us called the Absolute, the Supreme, the Infinite, the Source, etc. the principle of all things and ultimately our life beat.  Our pulse is nothing else than our soul ticking …

Upasana is an asana for the soul.  Humans are body-mind and soul as it is generally recognized.  We – outside India – called yoga a sort of gymnastics that is in fact the fourth the eight limbs of yoga.  So what we call yoga is in fact hatha yoga, physical exercise that unite body and mind.  Asana means comfortable and stable posture.

Meditation is another part of yoga, this dhyana, the seventh limb, which follows a few other intermediate steps.  Again, outside India, we like  talk about yoga and meditation as two separate things when in fact meditation is part of yoga.

So we do asanas to align our bodies and minds but what we do for our souls. Of course, we can and should meditate if we have been initiated to it but again there are many traditions and probably as many forms of meditation as they are meditators.

One thing we can agree is that the soul -our life principle -needs to be fortified and kept healthy as our mind and our body. Upasana – sitting near God – is a spa for the soul.  In upasana, the soul finds joy and happiness which is what keeps it bright and alive. 

 We will see how to do upasana in our next discourse.  In the meantime, keep on smiling. Smile is the expression as well as the source of joy, like a boomerang of happiness.